John Milton Thayer

John Milton Thayer (24 January 1820-19 March 1906) was a US Senator from Nebraska (R) from 1 March 1867 to 3 March 1871 (preceding Phineas W. Hitchcock), Governor of the Wyoming Territory from 1 March 1875 to 10 April 1878 (succeeding John Allen Campbell and preceding John Wesley Hoyt), and Governor of Nebraska from 6 January 1887 to 8 February 1892 (succeeding James W. Dawes and preceding James E. Boyd).

Biography
John Milton Thayer was born in Bellingham, Massachusetts in 1820, and he arrived in Nebraska in 1854. He owned a large farm near Omaha, served as a Major-General in the territorial militia, and became involved in Republican politics, serving in the Territorial Legislature in 1860. He served as a US Army Major-General during the American Civil War, fighting on the Mississippi River front. Thayer went on to serve in the US Senate from 1867 to 1871, as Governor of the Wyoming Territory from 1875 to 1878, and as Governor of Nebraska from 1887 to 1892. He died in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1906.